(Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch") Otter is... not immediately endorsing the
expansion of Idaho's Medicaid coverage to include more than 100,000
additional low-income residents whose bills would largely be paid for
with funding from Washington.

Instead, Otter now plans to spend the next year studying how Idaho's
federal-state funded health care system for the poor can be revamped to
make it less focused on paying fees for services and more on requiring
Medicaid beneficiaries to take more responsibility for their health.

Comment: Wow! What a great idea! Instead of paying for essential health
care services for Medicaid patients, let's make those people "take more
responsibility for their health." We could expand the same concept to
everyone, including Gov. Otter, and then our health care spending
problem would be solved.

Please excuse the abject frivolity of this comment, but what I really
want to know is, what has happened to compassion in America?